The city clerk says Quincy’s department heads will be required to undergo records-management training, and the city will start implementing coordinated “shred days” twice per year.

Patrick Ronan The Patriot Ledger @pronan_Ledger

In response to two recent scandals involving public records, the city clerk says Quincy’s department heads will be required to undergo records-management training, and the city will start implementing coordinated “shred days” twice per year.

In March, the city’s public works department illegally burned 49 boxes of old records without first getting permission from the state. And two weeks ago, dozens of city records, some containing private information about individual military veterans, were found strewn across a city neighborhood on the same day they were supposed to be destroyed.

“More training,” City Clerk Joseph Shea, Quincy’s keeper of public records, said when asked how the city is responding to the two incidents, “and put the fear of God into all department heads that we’re going to shred (unneeded records) all together.”

Shea, who has been city clerk for 22 years, said the city’s department heads have undergone training in the past through the Secretary of State’s public records division, which governs how long public records must be stored and how to apply for their disposal. Shea said there will be more training sessions in light of the recent events.

Also, instead of department heads coordinating with shred companies independently, like the veterans department did recently, Shea said he’ll oversee two citywide “shred days” every year. These “shred days” – in the spring and fall – will be the only days in which departments can destroy unneeded records, as long as their disposal is approved by the state. And all the records will be shredded – not burned – at city hall by a hired shred company.

“I think every government has a wake-up call,” at-large City Councilor Doug Gutro said. “When there’s substantial or visible incident, there’s an opportunity to refresh our knowledge and system.”

At the request of Mayor Thomas Koch, Quincy police are investigating how the veterans records got loose. Koch said he ordered the probe after speaking with representatives from Shred King, the Quincy-based company that picked up about 85 boxes of veterans records on April 22 and took them back to its Holbrook branch to be shredded.

Koch said he didn’t know who was responsible for some of the records ending up scattered across a residential neighborhood, but he asserted that Shred King isn’t to blame.

“It disturbs me greatly what happened there. I want to get to the bottom of that,” Koch said.